Vice President Nixon's motorcade attacked in Venezuela, May 13, 1958

On this day in 1958, angry Venezuelans attacked a car carrying Vice President Richard Nixon as the motorcade drove through Caracas. They sought to overturn the car, dented its body and broke several windows.

Nixon and his wife, Patricia, had arrived in Venezuela in the course of their Latin American “goodwill tour.” At the time, relations were strained between the Republican administration in Washington and Latin Americans on the left side of the political spectrum. They charged that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in focusing on cold war rivalries with the Soviet Union, had failed to address pressing economic needs in the Western Hemisphere while extending his backing to anti-communist dictatorial regimes.

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According to a report by the U.S. Secret Service, demonstrators had “purposely disrupted [an earlier] airport welcoming ceremony by shouting, blowing whistles, waving derogatory placards, throwing stones, and showering the Nixons with human spittle and chewing tobacco.”

The report noted that as club- and pipe-wielding protesters damaged the vehicles, the Secret Service agents continued to shield the Nixons and that local police did not intervene. The report added: “Although they were being spat upon and shoved, agents used their open palms, rather than their fists or weapons, to prevent the mob from entering the cars. A shell casing struck one agent. Dazed and bleeding from a head wound, he continued to assist in keeping the crowd back.”

“When the mob began to rock the vice president’s car in hopes of overturning it and setting it ablaze, agents inside the vehicle drew their weapons, but held their fire. The perilous situation was averted by using a large flatbed truck containing the news media. The truck slowly cleared a path through the crowd.”

The remaining ceremonies on tap for that day were canceled. The vice presidential party left Caracas the next day, ahead of schedule.